Huskies men’s basketball coach Lorenzo Romar said star guard Markelle Fultz, who has missed UW’s last two games due to a sore knee, is progressing and doing more in practice, but is still a game-time decision for Thursday night’s 8 p.m. matchup against Arizona State at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

Here is everything else Romar said about Fultz’s status, the prospect of playing without him and more.

(How is Markelle Fultz?) “He’s progressing. He’s doing a little more. Still day to day, but he’s been doing a little bit with us and he’ll do a little bit more. He’ll still be a pretty much game-time decision.”

(Would you say it’s 50-50?) “I don’t know. Again, each day is different with it. If he continues to make progress, we’re probably more optimistic than pessimistic.”

(What has he been doing the past couple days that he couldn’t do before?) “He’s been running around, shooting, ball-handling a little bit. Today, we anticipate him being able to go 5-on-5, and we’ll go from there.”

(Would you say 100 percent that he’ll play again this season?) “I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty confident. Not a doctor, but pretty confident.”

(On what happened with his knee) “I don’t know exactly what brought it on, but like I said, he’s definitely been making progress.”

(On how Fultz has handled this season) “Markelle is pretty driven and positive guy. It says something when you’re able to overcome adversity, and he’s overcome a lot. It’s been well noted about playing junior varsity and then the next year making such an improvement that he’s player of the year in his conference and all that. He went through a tough time with his great grandmother passing around Christmastime. His mom is such a rock. The people in his circle are such positive people – not unrealistic, but positive people to where you combine someone that has just not been given everything, he’s had to work for everything, with that type of people in his life, you’re able to get through some things. And he’s brought that here with him this year.”

(On Fultz dealing with distractions) “He loves to play basketball. He can’t wait to get on the court. When he’s on the court, it’s his playground. So not a whole lot is going to distract him. He loves the game too much.”

(On if he knows any more about when Malik Dime, who is currently suspended, might play again) “No, not at this point.”

(Is he healthy enough to play?) “He could play, yeah. Physically, he’s able to play.”

(Do you think he will play again this season?) “We’re still evaluating everything completely. So we’ll see. To be determined.”

(On what pieces he’s still considering regarding Dime) “I’m probably not going to go into that. Probably more of a private matter with us.”

(On the scout team) “Oh, it’s huge. Those guys have a big responsibility when we’re about to play a game. They help us get prepared and I think we have some really good guys that go out there on that team and are selfless and go out and try to do a good job to help us prepare for that. When they have an opportunity to get in the game and produce, it’s a great feeling to see that. It’s good to see them rewarded.”

(On it being complicated for scout-team players in practice when they also play in the games) “Oh, no. They still get after it. They’re fine. They do a lot.”

(On mindset before Pac-12 tournament) “We’re trying to, again, get a good as we can get to prepare ourselves for the Pac-12 tournament. That’s what we’re trying to do, like everyone is, but everyone approaches the Pac-12 tournament for different reasons. Our is, we know that’s our one chance at this point to make it to the NCAA tournament. We’re trying to prepare ourselves now.”

(On whether the team has improved or if it’s hard to tell without Fultz) “Well, obviously without Markelle, but Markelle has been in games when we haven’t done as well. So I think what we’ve done is taken steps backward in certain games. But I do think you take those games away, we’ve made some progress.”

(On what happens when teams do make progress this late) “Things click, sometimes different lineups, certain guys are playing well. All of a sudden, certain combinations are playing well. Sometimes a couple guys step up and the light comes on for them and they start doing really well. I rememberit happening for Matthew Bryan-Amaning and Justin Holiday, midseason, just there it went, and they started playing well. That can happen. Our coaching staff, there are certain things that we tweak and it makes a huge difference with our team. There are a number of things that can happen that get you to start playing a whole lot better.”

(On what gives him hope that can happen with this team) “Well, the youth gets older and now we’re at a point now where if the season ended with six guaranteed games left, the sophomores should be like juniors almost and freshmen should be like sophomores. That in itself, you start to see in practice and even in games, decisions guys are making, you say, you know what, a month ago, six weeks ago, they wouldn’t have made that decision. They made the right decision there. You can see them starting to mature. In certain areas, maybe defensively, they don’t just go for every shot fake, they’re in the right position, they’re not out of position as much. Those things start to happen with your team, you can start to do a lot better and win some games.”

(On UW’s chances of having success in the Pac-12 tournament) “I’ve seen it happen before, I think I’ve mentioned it, and what happened was – again, not a fairy tale, what actually happened – I was the head coach at Saint Louis and we finished eighth place in Conference-USA and the last game of league we played Cincinnati on senior night at their place with Kenyon Martin. And I remember he came out and he had tears in his eyes and I thought, OK, he’s ready to play tonight, and we lost by 44, and it just wasn’t good. When the brackets came out, we knew who was going to play who, the pairings, and we looked and we knew in the second round, if we won the first game, we were going to play Cincinnati again. So you look at that, they’re No. 1 in the country, you’re playing Cincinnati, they just beat you by 44. You’ve got no chance. You had to win four games in four days. And what happened was, there were a couple guys that just decided for whatever reason at that point they were going to do whatever it took. And word kind of got around to the team, and we managed to win the first game. When we did that, all of a sudden, if you’re winning every game, you don’t feel like you can ever lose. When you’re losing every game, doubt creeps in. Well, once we won that game, I felt like, let’s go. And we upset Cincinnati, they were No. 1 in the country, then we won the next game, then we won the championship. And we held every team under 60 points, and nobody had ever done that in Conference USA. There was an attitude change, there was a togetherness, there was a buy-in. All of that happened and for four straight days, everybody pretty much stepped up and played well. So you ask me, what would have to happen? What did happen was that.”

(This team similar to that team?) “The one thing, the difference was, that team was older. This team is younger. There were some inconsistencies at times. We had lost leads at times.”

(On Sam Timmins -- playing more because he’s improving, or because you want him to play?) “We’ve seen improvement with Sam. You can see he’s starting to do some things that – when we’re in the zone, and he’s in there in the zone, he’s got a big body. I thought when we played at Arizona, he did a very good job in there battling their big guys and he was a presence down there. A couple games ago, he pulled down 11 rebounds for us. So he’s been doing some positive things.”

(On Matthew Atewe falling out of the rotation) “Just kind of matchups. Again, Sam started doing what he’s doing, so he’s gotten the nod more. We’ve played with small lineups also, so you can’t play everybody.”

(On this being one of his most difficult seasons) “It’s been difficult, no doubt about it, because we continue to tinker, trying to find the right formula and so far we haven’t found it yet. That always makes it a difficult situation. But we’re still fighting and clawing, trying to figure out in the short season that we have left.”

(On other players stepping up without Fultz) “That’s always the case. You mention the guys on the scout team earlier. In the Colorado game, Dan Kingma got to come in and I thought not only held his own, he helped us. In the game against Utah, David Crisp scored 31 points, his career high, so that alone, couple guys were able to step up and make their presence felt.”

(On comparisons between this team and the 2014-15 team) “That team became depleted with injuries and other things, other distractions. This team has just been more, not being able to get over the hump, not being able to learn – being young, not totally getting it yet, and I as head coach haven’t been able to get us to get over that hump fast enough. But those would be the two differences, I would say, main differences.”

(Can you play the same without Markelle?) “No, and I thought in the Colorado game, even in Utah, we played a little differently because we played a lot more conservative without Markelle in there. We had to be a little more calculated. Maybe that’s what this team needs to do, needs to play even when Markelle comes back.”

(On whether the team believes it can win without Fultz) “Subconsciously, you go out there without your leading scorer and leading assister and leading playmaker, all of that, you know you’re not playing with a full deck. But I didn’t think we went out there not believing we could win when we were in Colorado and Utah. I thought we went out there in both games and tried to play right. Utah went on a huge run after we were up 18-10 and that kind of changed the whole momentum of the game. But I didn’t think our guys went out there and played like we don’t have a chance to win.”

(On the idea that Fultz would be playing if UW were competing for a league title) “No. He has not been allowed to play. Markelle, you’ve got to hold him back from wanting to play. If you’re playing H-O-R-S-E, if you’re playing on the playground, if you’re playing on an 8-foot rim, he wants to play. But he was held back from playing. So no. Where we’re at in the season has nothing to do with if he’s playing or not.”

(On if he doubts his ability as a head coach) “If I was a coach that I’d been a head coach for maybe three years, and every year we’ve had losing seasons, maybe that would be the case. But as a head coach, I’ve been involved in a lot of wins and some successful teams and have tasted it, so no, I don’t doubt myself. I continue to look at ways to try to find a way to get it done and to be better, but I don’t doubt myself. Fair question, though.”

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About Christian Caple

A proud native of Longview, Wash., Christian Caple joins The News Tribune after covering Washington State football and men's basketball for two years at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane (though he lived in Pullman). He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Washington, an avid NWAACC basketball fan, and is unsure how to proceed now that Breaking Bad is over.